Accelerated Thinking

This month I have mostly been thinking about the future as I trudge through middle age. Perhaps it is a direct result of Grant Morrison’s early influence on my path but I have always viewed Chaos magick as a vital force tied directly to the pop culture of the current year. That said I am in my mid 40’s now, and finally starting to slip behind the curve. Mainstream music seems increasingly discordant, the big box office blockbusters leave me cold and comic books all seem to have forgotten they are supposed to be about escapism. The internet is becoming an entity of diametrically opposed social poles, corporations playing both edges against the middle for profit. I have to face the facts that I am getting older, and my occult life needs to move in line with that. It is still jarring though, to realise that the inherent connection with those throw away currents required to mould your ritual is now severed.

Empowered Words

“The belief that the devil could be tricked was illustrated in a remarkable trial from Norfolk in 1465. It was alleged that a weaver, Robert Hikkes, and his accomplice, John Cans, had used ‘unlawful arts’ to summon up an ‘accursed spirit’ and asked it to reveal the location of buried treasure. They had enticed the demon to divulge this information by promising it ‘the body of a Christian’, but deceived the fiend by baptising a cockerel with holy water, killing it and offering its remains ‘as a Christian carcass’. The charges against the men alleged that this fraud had succeeded and they had thereby acquired a ‘vast treasure’. Such confidence in the limits of demonic power, and the capacity of people to manipulate it, underpinned the practice of invoking spirits in both learned and popular magic in medieval England.“
— Darren Oldridge, The Devil in Early Modern England

Occult Almanac

April witnesses a noticeable speeding up of the usual celestial dance. Lunar observances begin with the First Quarter on the 5th and Full Alder or Growing Moon on the 13th. The Third Quarter is then on the 21st with Accelerated Necromancers celebrating the Super New Moon on the 27th as the Militia’s Moon. Mercury is both retrograde until the 6th and also reaches its Greatest Western Elongation on the 21st as well. The Lyrids Meteor Shower Peaks directly after this, on the 22nd and 23rd, while Walpurgisnacht ushers in Beltane eve on the 30th. Easter is likely to only be of limited interest to those who do not work within the Abrahamic paradigm, but that falls upon the 20th either way. Perhaps demonolaters can do something to subvert that current. Nights are significantly shorter now and the solar energies are waxing. All in all perfect time for a spring clean, both physical and emotional.

Necronomicon Mortui

A list of notable members of the occult, paranormal and Fortean community, ordered by date of death as opposed to birth. Sir William Crookes, Spiritualist, born 17th June 1832, died 4th April 1919. David Farrant, Parapsychologist, born 23rd January 1946, died 8th April 2019. Anthony Donald Cornell, Parapsychologist, born 1924, died 10th April 2010. Arthur William Bell III, Broadcaster, born 17th June 1945, died 13th April 2018. William Thomas Stead, Spiritualist, born 5th July 1849, died 15th April 1912. Christina Alexandra Queen of Sweden, Alchemist, born 18th December 1626, died 19th April 1689. Morris Ketchum Jessup, UFOlogist, born 2nd March 1900, died 20th April 1959. Florence Cook, Medium, born around 1856, died 22nd April 1904. Rudolf Tischner, Parapsychologist, born 3rd April 1879, died 24th April 1961. Hans Holzer, Parapsychologist, born 26th January 1920, died 26th April 2009. Carlos Castaneda, Mystic, born 25th December 1925, died 27th April 1998. Glenn Dennis, UFOlogist, born 24th March 1925, died 28th April 2015. Tommaso Palamidessi, Mystic, born 16th February 1915, died 29th April 1983.

Vault Viewer

This month we are going back in time to early 2022, when Tha Kayozz Evokkation first saw print on the now defunct ChaosMagick.Com website. Yes the name of the ritual the article outlines is odd, but those in the know will quickly understand why such a strange form of spelling was chosen. Everyone else will get the point as they read along with the instructions. As someone who put my own magickal system together from a variety of unrelated sources I have always viewed the rusty bones of old aeon occultism as a potter’s field ready for less than reverential harvest. Designed as a vaccination against the inherent dogma that many traditions can heap upon the seeker, completing the Evokkation as outlined will empower future free-form efforts to approach the weird. It is now free to read on my portfolio website by following the above link.

Grimoire Guides

It goes without saying that the caustic effect which Nazi Occultism has had on the public perception of the wider esoteric movement persists to this day. Yet while it is inevitable that those misinformed ideas would see shelf space in bookshops worldwide occasionally a work of fiction comes along which handles the material in an interesting, if perhaps borderline nihilistic, way. The Keep by F. Paul Wilson is one such novel, a dark story of magickal forces duelling for the fate of humanity within a Carpathian castle. A seemingly eternal warrior of light and ancient creature born of darkness are set to use the location for their long overdue reunion, a meeting hastened by the careless actions of German soldiers looking for hidden gold. There is a love story in there too of course, and genuinely engaging characters on both sides of the wartime divide. Yes, the film has a cult following. But the book is even better.

End Notes

And there it is, the latest issue of my occult and paranormal newsletter ready to dance beyond this portfolio blogspace and into inboxes far and wide. No real updates worth mentioning behind the scenes here this month. Everything is ticking over as it should be so far as 2025 moves beyond the first quarter and towards what will likely be an uncomfortably warm summer. Sales of The Accelerated Necromancer continue to trickle in, and while I am proud of that accomplishment I have also been missing the much more instant thrill of seeing longform articles in print. So there are a couple new ones already waiting to be mailed out to publishers as you read this, and a few more that require a quick clean up before submission. As always, once I hear what will be going live where I will let you all know so you can decide if you fancy taking a look. Until then, watch this space.